The Navy’s new force structure assessment nearing completion will call for a fleet of “around” 300 ships, and is based on the Obama administration’s military strategy outlined earlier this year that places greater focus on the Asia-Pacific region, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the Chief of Naval Operations, told reporters Friday.
Greenert said the force structure review could be submitted to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus next week. The number of ships is about a dozen fewer from the most recent review completed in 2007 that called for building a sustaining a fleet of 313 vessels. The fleet currently stands at 285 ships.
“I think the number will come out somewhere around 300,” Greenert said at an event hosted by the Defense Writers Group.
If Mabus approves the plan, it will then go before Defense Secretary Leon Panetta before heading to Congress and being released publicly, Greenert said.
The nation’s budget crunch has forced the Navy to delay the procurement of several vessels over the next five years. In the five-year shipbuilding plan unveiled Feb. 13 alongside its fiscal 2013 spending request, the Navy proposed building 41 ships–57 fewer than earlier planned.
Greenert said the force structure assessment was carried out separately from the current fiscal environment, and was instead based on the Asia-Pacific strategy.
“We took the strategy and decided what capabilities are necessary to meet that strategy,” he said
The five-year shipbuilding plan will keep the Navy at its current level of 285 ships by 2017. The number is expected to reach 300 by 2019 as the Littoral Combat Ships and Joint High Speed Vessels come into the fleet.
The Navy has already been facing criticism on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have already questioned whether the service has an adequate number of ships to meet its global requirements. The Navy has expressed confidence it can carry out the mission with the planned levels.
Mabus said earlier this month that increasing the Navy’s presence in the Asia-Pacific will largely be done by procuring new ships rather than by reducing the fleet in other vital areas of the world.
Currently, about 55 percent of the Navy’s force is based in the Pacific while 45 percent is Atlantic oriented, but those numbers will “gradually” shift to more along the lines of 60 to 40 percent favoring the Pacific as the Pentagon executes a new global strategy, Mabus said (Defense Daily, March 9).